


Someone to Save Me

by posingasme



Category: Supernatural
Genre: After the swan dive but before the djinn jump, Episode: s06e01 Exile on Main St., F/M, Gen, Post-Episode: s05e22 Swan Song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-12 21:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13555497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/posingasme/pseuds/posingasme
Summary: Saving people and hunting things suddenly becomes hunting for someone to save Dean, when Sam dives into the deep end of Hell. Cassie Robinson finds her first love on her doorstep years after saying goodbye...again.





	Someone to Save Me

**Author's Note:**

> For SomeKindofSaviour

For just a moment, Dean thought about what Sam had said. He considered going to Lisa’s door. But Lisa wasn’t alone. She had a son. And Dean just couldn’t go from watching a kid he raised from a baby diving into the literal Pit of Hell, to being a part of Ben’s childhood. Lisa probably wouldn’t put up with the mess he was now anyway. 

So when he dropped, broken and drunk on whiskey and grief, it was on the step outside Cassie Robinson’s home. 

Her voice barely registered as familiar. Too much had happened since they had last been together. Hell had happened since they had last been together. 

“Dean? Is that-Oh, my god. Are you all right? What can I do?”

“He’s gone, Cassie. And I can’t...They’re all gone.”

She had sighed, and sat beside him on the step. She put her arm around him, and let him lean his bulk onto her small frame. “Dean, I’m so sorry. Sam too?”

Sam too. As though anyone had ever mattered more, or even nearly as much. “My mom. My dad. And Sam.” His heart, his mind, his spirit. All gone. His faith, his strength, his hope. Even Castiel had disappeared. Bobby had tried to make him stay a few more nights, but he just couldn’t. 

“Do you want to talk about how?”

He looked down at the empty bottle in his hand and laughed bitterly. “No. I want to drink. And sleep. And die.”

That was how he ended up face down in Cassie Robinson’s bed for nearly two blurry, drunken weeks. 

While the world put itself back together after the near-Apocalypse, Cassie put Dean back together a bit at a time. She gave him space, but made him eat. She let him cry, but made him tell the story. She gave him a place to stay, but made him clean up after himself. Cassie went to work, then came home and told him about her projects. He wasn’t expected to show interest, but he was required to listen, and it occurred to him that part of what she was doing was reminding him that the world was still spinning outside the bedroom where he was rotting away. 

Very, very slowly, Dean realized this was what he needed, to be pushed out of bed occasionally, to be forced to be a functioning human, or at least a reasonable facsimile of one. Cassie rewarded him with a gorgeous smile, but said nothing when she found him dressed and cooking when she came home one day. It felt like a victory. It felt like he had finally gotten something right. 

Cassie’s mother had moved into assisted living after the episode with the horrible ghost truck. Cassie visited her twice a week, and at last Dean went too. He didn’t know what to say, but Cassie seemed to appreciate that he was there. 

That night, they slept together for the first time in years, and Dean held her tighter than he probably should have. 

The nightmares ate him up, left him drained of energy and emotion, but Cassie was patient. She began pouring him a glass of wine, and refused to pick up liquor for him, and he didn’t have the capacity to do so himself. It was a cruel strategy, and he loved her for it. His whole adult life, no one had ever succeeded in making Dean stop drinking. But when he bitched, Cassie simply looked him in the eyes and told him that the liquor store was downtown, and he was welcome to drive there if he wanted to. Because she knew he couldn’t drive. 

Sometimes he went out to sit in the Impala. Sometimes he even worked on her, changing the oil with dedication, even though she sat for weeks on end without moving. 

He couldn’t drive her. So she waited, and held him while he cried. 

Sometimes he lost his mind. He researched feverishly, poured through every book he could find, tore at his own hair, trying to bring Sam back. It was his job. He had done it before. He would do it again. He even grabbed a bottle of wine and walked to a crossroads, but all he got was drunk and rejected by hellspawn who said no deal. Couldn’t be done. It took the entire history of humanity for Lucifer to break out of the Cage the first time. There was no way to pop the box again, certainly not without ending the whole damn world. When Dean had roared that he didn’t care about the world, only his kid brother, the demon had rolled her red eyes and blinked away. 

Cassie had given him tea for his wine head in the morning. 

***

Dean was staring out at the water blankly. He felt Cassie’s hand on his shoulder, but it couldn’t warm the chill. “Hey,” he murmured without looking behind him. “Just say it. Okay?”

They had not spoken in two days. She wasn’t even looking at him most of the time. “Dean, I love you.”

He smiled sadly. “Yeah,” he sighed. “I love you too.”

“No. You don’t.”

If his heart was still capable of breaking, that might have done it. As it was, he simply cringed. “I appreciate you. I’m grateful to you. You don’t know how grateful.” He took a breath. “Just say what you need to say, Cassie.”

She sat down on the dock beside him, let him lean on her, held him, just as she had done that first night when he arrived on her porch. “You gotta go, Dean.” 

He swallowed, and nodded. 

“You’re a good man, Dean Winchester. The best. But you’re lost without someone who needs you.”

A short laugh pressed a tear from his burning eyes. “And you never have.”

She shrugged. “I did once. And you were there for me. You saved me and my mom. So I returned that favor when you came here broken. Dean, I love you, but I don’t need you. And you’re grateful, but you aren’t going to get what you need here. You need someone who depends on you, someone you have to be strong for. You need someone you’re dedicated to, who truly needs you at your best. You need someone to save, Dean, and that’s never going to be me.”

Dean turned to stare at her in wonder. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever known in that moment. “Cassie Robinson, this will be the third time you’ve thrown me away.”

Her smirk held a hint of sadness in it, but she nodded. “I’m sending you back where you belong, Dean. We both know it isn’t with me. Saving people, hunting things...You need it. I’m not someone who needs to be taken care of, Dean, and I don’t need saving anymore. So you’ll never be yourself again with me.”

“Maybe I don’t want to be me again.” How could he be? He wasn’t whole anymore, would never be whole. 

Cassie kissed his lips softly. “I want you to be you again. So find yourself something to hunt, and someone to save, and make love to me once more before you go. Because we were always good at that part.”

***

It was only four months after Sam had thrown himself and two psychotically codependent archangels into a hole in the bottom of Hell, when Dean showed up at Bobby’s door unexpectedly. He noticed a black piece of plastic douchery in the driveway, and wondered if the old drunk had company. But he had made himself drive there, had made himself come back to ask Bobby about finding him a hunting partner. So long as it wasn’t the jackass with the Charger, Dean was willing to settle for anyone who could hold his own against a fang or two. No one could ever be Sam. But Cassie was right. Dean needed to save someone. If it couldn’t be Sam, it may as well be anyone.


End file.
